INTERRUPCIÓN DE LA VENTILACIÓN MECÁNICA Objetivos

Across pilot sites Sunday remand courts were felt to have exacerbated weekday scheduling and turnover issues, and at greater expense, particularly among participants who had not perceived any significant scheduling or turnover difficulties prior to the pilots. The impact on Monday workloads varied between sites. In quieter sites magistrates did not like having less work to do because this was not felt to be an efficient use of their time. Courts that remained busy on Mondays (if not busier) attributed this to the large number of cases that were

adjourned on Sundays pending a weekday hearing.

6.3

Perceived effects on staff and partner agencies

Partnership working

Despite there being little positive impact reported on court efficiencies, the Sunday court pilots were felt to have improved partnership working. Participants valued the pilots for bringing them into contact with personnel from different areas of the CJS. This was reported to have enhanced understanding and appreciation of the work carried out by others.

“I think it’s been very, very good for partnership working to be honest. That doesn’t mean that everyone agrees with it or that [they] didn’t have some real concerns moving forward about the sustainability of it, but in terms of all of the agencies pulling together and seeing how we could operate a pilot then I think it has been a really good example of partnership working.” (Strategic staff 04)

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Where multi-agency meetings continued throughout the pilot they were considered helpful by allowing partner agencies to discuss experiences and challenges.

Agencies

While Sunday courts impacted on partner agencies in different ways, the implications for staff resources and the perceived operational costs (set against perceived benefits) were common themes.

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sites. From their perspective, the pilots allowed them to clear their cells on Sundays, enabling custody officers to concentrate on other work rather than oversee detainees. However, compounded with Libra downtime, the pilots placed additional pressure on police staff responsible for preparing court files and

updating records.

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because their fee structure worked on a ‘per case’ basis, which meant they received the same fee regardless of how many times they appeared at court. Therefore it was difficult to cover the additional staff costs of Sunday working, and it was considered particularly unhelpful if Sunday cases were adjourned to later in the week.

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They also reported that their efforts were duplicated because they were not informed about which defence firms were participating. This meant private solicitors sometimes arrived to represent defendants that they had spent time consulting. PDS solicitors also reported pressure from private defence firms to withdraw from the pilots, which affected morale.

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particularly when agents (who were generally less experienced) required CPS solicitors to be on call to provide support. The pilot was also thought by CPS managers in one site to have led staff to drop out of working on Saturdays, due to concerns about being asked to work on Sundays as well as, or instead of,

Saturdays.

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Across sites, the costs of Sunday opening were not thought justifiable. This was because intakes were significantly lower than expected. This was particularly the case for female prisons whose numbers were already low, and led a female prison to withdraw from the pilot.

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At one end of the spectrum few operational issues were reported, with no problems delivering detainees on time and no issues with staffing. At the other, the pilots were described to have put a strain on already demanding operations and created logistical difficulties with staff rotas and hours. The operating costs for transfer companies, although paid for by MoJ, were considered higher per prisoner on a Sunday than on a weekday due to the low prisoner throughput.

Personnel

Fulfilment from work

A positive impact reported was that some court staff and personnel received the opportunity to take on new roles and develop skills in different areas because of the lower level of staffing. However, this came with increased workloads for some, such as solicitors, magistrates, probation officers and court administrators. Perceptions of higher rates of adjournments and duplication of tasks due to Libra system downtime also meant some teams reported higher weekday workloads. Also, the usual facilities for staff were not available on a Sunday in some courts, such as refreshments or canteens, which affected morale.

Work-life balance

Some staff felt their pilot pay arrangements were inadequate compensation for the impact of Sunday working on their work-life balance. Defence solicitors also considered themselves to be disproportionately affected in this regard, although the impacts varied according to size of the firm. Even staff who had maintained a good work-life balance expressed concern about Sunday working on a long-term basis.

6.4

Perceived effects on court users

Defendants

Time in police custody

Defendants generally valued spending less time in police custody as a result of appearing at court a day earlier, even if they were subsequently remanded in prison, because conditions in prison were considered better than in police custody. Staff were generally supportive of defendants being released from police custody earlier, particularly vulnerable defendants such as those with mental health issues. However, the benefits of an earlier court date for this group were seen to be counteracted by the lack of psychiatric support where this was not available on Sundays.

Swifter justice

Staff across partner agencies felt that the Sunday pilots did not achieve swifter justice due to the number of cases considered to result in adjournment to a weekday court.

Representation

Solicitors and magistrates were concerned that defendants being represented by PDS or duty solicitors (who were not as familiar with their cases as their own solicitors) were sometimes disadvantaged, for example with regard to bail decisions.

Practicalities

Difficulties were reported in arranging suitable accommodation for youth and adult defendants on a Sunday. Bail hostels and support services were also unavailable. The Sunday pilots also posed travel problems for defendants due to less frequent public transport. This was a particular problem for defendants who did not live locally.

Victims and witnesses

Sunday remand courts were not thought to have had a direct impact on victims and witnesses as they were not required to attend court. One victim who chose to attend a Sunday remand court was interviewed as part of this evaluation18 and would have preferred a weekday court to avoid interference with weekend plans.

Where Witness Care Units (WCU) provided a service on Sundays for the pilots, staff felt victims and witnesses benefited from hearing outcomes a day earlier as it relieved anxiety. However, victim support (VS) officers interviewed thought victims and witnesses would prefer to come in on weekdays due to potential childcare and travel issues at the weekend.

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7.

Video courts

Sunday video courts were remand courts and took place on three consecutive Sundays in January 2013 within different courts in one county. Although video courts had been running on weekdays in these courts since November 2011, for this pilot each video court linked one court to three different custody suites, whereas previously each court had connected to just one police station. This proof of concept was part of a longer term plan to implement a Regional Video Court. In addition to this Regional Video Court, another court participated in the pilots by extending the use of their existing video court. However, this was not included in the qualitative evaluation as the pilot ceased to operate due to a lack of throughput.

7.1

Experiences of delivery

The video court equipment and technology worked well on the three days the pilot ran. The technology was tested in the week leading up to the pilot, and on the day links were easy to complete and did not cause delays. However, the nature of some cases meant they could not be heard over video link and defendants had to be brought to court in person, which slowed proceedings considerably. This applied to cases with multiple defendants, a youth defendant, or defendants with mental health problems or other vulnerabilities, and was noted as a permanent issue for video courts dealing with remand cases.

Some solicitors and probation staff noted delays with consulting clients due to the lack of detention officers specifically allocated to assist with video links at custody suites. Each court house had one consulting room to enable solicitors to interview their clients, but delays increased where there was more than one solicitor as well as probation or Youth Offending Service (YOS) staff needing to interview their client.

Sunday video courts also experienced many of the delivery issues faced by other Sunday courts, discussed in more detail in section 6.1.

7.2

Perceived effects

Linking to more than one custody suite from each court caused no delays to court processes. However, delays related to the specific nature of the case meant that on the first Sunday eight defendants who were remanded to prison had to be kept in police custody on the Sunday night. This video court pilot had the same impacts of a Sunday court on defendants, efficiencies and staff, and again these are discussed in section 6.1.

8.

Conclusions and recommendations

In this concluding chapter the key findings and recommendations from the research are presented. Before doing so, two caveats are necessary. First, due to the nature of the specific models piloted, the intended beneficiaries of flexible justice – victims and witnesses – could not be included in this research to a large extent. The way in which they could benefit from flexible court models has therefore not been fully examined. However, when CJS

practitioners were asked about the likely benefits for victims, witnesses and defendants, a number of advantages were identified.

Second, assessing professional stakeholders’ reactions to the pilots at an early point in implementation is likely to generate a less positive response, as participants react to ‘teething problems’, some of which appeared to be addressed over time. The amount of notice provided prior to implementation (as little as one month in some instances) might have underpinned any dissatisfaction. The findings should be considered with this context in mind.

8.1

Pilot implementation

There was some ambivalence about the net benefits of flexible courts, although there was variation in responses to the different models. While there was a consensus that flexible models were feasible, and that local partnerships had worked effectively to ensure they worked well, there was less agreement about their necessity. Defence firms saw particular difficulties in implementing some flexible models on a wider or permanent basis.

Recruiting personnel with the appropriate skills was key to case completion and crucial to pilot success, but was identified as a challenge across pilots. The long-term sustainability and cost-effectiveness of pilot arrangements around pay and working hours was also questioned.

A recurrent theme was that, while flexible courts accelerated the administration of justice, improvements in efficiency could instead be made in the current day-to-day administration of the courts.

8.2

Specific pilot models